Catherine wheel retains late licence

Blood, bile and an Argentinian - city council keep Wheels turning.

Friday 4th June 2010

Soft in the belly and long in the nose, with a vacant stare and an onerous scent, I have looked upon my pallid frame and stared upon my weakness.  I've taken myself in the hard hand of truth.  I am not Holy or Pure.  Not for me, boys, to deliver soft message in tough preaching -  I'm up to my eyeballs in Ahabs' mess, and I'm eating with the lowly. 

Yet still, I have a sufferance.  That sufferance is my indebtedness to my fellow in kind.

Alas, the same exonerated, age old disposition ain't alive in my neighbours' conduct.  At least, that is, if I am to take the role of the local city ale-house.  Which I will, at least for a moment.

For across the city squealing, they have arrived, rambling in pig-shack caravans and ending up on the doorstep of not you - maybe not even me, but "US", my friend (and feel the bite) - their Gorgon-Grigio shanks awash with the sweat of complaint and colostomy - broad blood shining through the bit-marks of their righteousness, riding themselves like dog-necked, hard-bitten Warriors Of The Wretched, come to take their leaning-posts and do themselves below the belt - no trace of human there, but a truly Android Species...Hell bent on destruction, yes, but easily spotted, tarred and feathered, like renegade priests in a valley of kings.

I was featured near the bar, drowned and inexorable, tapped into fortune and free of the bind.  I fought off Pedro, 'El Prolifico', for the very last time, but I saved some sweat from his arm.  Caught between dark love and a knowledge of sin, I heard the knocking come again.  Incessant.  That obscence, ham-fisted slapping, like a wet rag on a bar-room floor.  At that cold moment, I knew the game was up.  On the other side of the lime-washed wall, another strange brother was attempting to close down a fine, reputable establishment.  The inference was one of disturbed peace - of quiet, unrested.  

The thunder of change, I thought to myself.  Knowledge came quickly in those days.  I'd always known that these heady nights of Pedros' advances colud not last forever anyway.  I lowered my sodden head, and rose to leave.

At that moment, things took a change.

Like a golden, rock-salt sacrilege, beautiful and untamed against a sky of dirty pilgrimage, the star of freedom burned brightly in the face of my commitment.  In a flash, my visions of destruction were dispelled, and the long-distance traffic-jam of my despair was debased.

I'd been speaking with Pedro for some time now.  I had stroked his moustache and I'd felt on his uppers, and, in my distraction, I'd left the kettle of observancy boiling, but with its lid wide open.  Noticed not, had I, how the red-faced villagers were marching the floor, and were telling grim silence on the patterings of the neighbours.  While I'd been staring into onyx eyes of black promise, the populus had rallied.  I sensed the scene, and crouched.

I kept a low profile during the proceedings, but when a bearded man in a tight leotard sticks the sword of justice through the wall right above your head, it's hard to keep steady.  My soft bones cracked in the passing, but I made it to the door in time to see the pub explode in a furious rage of defiance.  In the three weeks I'd been locked in that damned Argentinian embrace, papers had been waved, and certain good things had been signed.

I may have missed the fight, I thought, but I haven't missed the flood.  Now the Catherine Wheel's retained its licence, the time has come for pubs across the land to act upon this example.  The new-comer residents that spit and spat over noise regulations have been demasted, and for the majority of city esablishments, a corner has surely been turned.  The 'Wheel will now keep its licence for late drinks and late music, albeit under minimal new regulation, and if that is the case for one, should it not be the case for all?

The shackles of a pub burned off onto the ground that night.  Now, perhaps, will rise a new beginning for Norwich Nightlife.  I knelt in the doorway as the flames licked my pumps.  I sniffed sulphur, and over the heat, notified the Argentine.  

"It's time to leave, Pedro."